Hares: Horsefli Drivebi, Roy Orifice, Pussy Checker

Grind’s pics from the spectacular ending of this run are here.

Found this on the Harris County Flood Control website:

The Hill at Sims Greenway is a large stormwater detention basin, located adjacent to Sims Bayou near Scott Street and West Orem Drive. It is capable of holding almost 325 million gallons of excess stormwater, greatly reducing the risk of flooding for area residents. It is a model stormwater detention basin and primary example of how flood control projects can be more than functional. Unlike other District detention basins, this basin features a hill that is almost 60 feet tall. The hill feature alone required almost 1.6 million cubic yards of soil, utilized from on-site excavation and disposal total detention excavation was more than 2.1 million cubic yards of soil. When standing on top of the hill, the site appears almost canyon-like, offering spectacular views of the Downtown Houston skyline. The District hopes to partner with another entity, such as Harris County or the City of Houston, to adopt the site and create park amenities and multi-use features for area residents. Nearly 10,000 trees have been planted at the site.

That’s the first time the hash has used that ending spot, as far as I know. Throughout the 90’s, we tried to get access to these hills that we could see from hiway 288, but could never find a way through the surrounding private property. Now, it appears that either a developer or the county government has gone in and done some major landscaping and concrete drainage work, and turned the area into a spectacular and unique topographic feature (at least in Houston). Hopefully this will remain public access in the future. The significance of this is that although we have lost many local public wooded areas to development over the years, occasionally something that was inaccessible will suddenly open up. Kudos to the hares for finding this one. If only they had made better use of it for the trail, instead of deathmarching us on RR tracks, pavement, and nasty sticker vines!

Do what you can to encourage the county to build more stuff like this!

— Grind Slut

Ed. note: McPisser’s map of trail is here.